


I Was Made Here

by Lyric_Hartwell



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Bloston, Boston Flowers, Gen, Industrialization, Nature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25861471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyric_Hartwell/pseuds/Lyric_Hartwell
Summary: Dunn Keyes takes a walk through the city, and reflects on the history of Old Bloston.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12
Collections: No Single Flower Wilted





	I Was Made Here

For Dunn Keyes, walking through Bloston is a bit like walking through a mirror. They can’t go two bloomin' blocks without seeing another of those Dunkies Donuts robots. The same model as them, but without the same spark that she had, they would stand in place trying to sell coffee endlessly to people who, at best, ignored them. The fact that blostonians have no love lost for the Dunkies Donuts Corp, however, is plainly apparent with the number of smashed robot corpses littering the city. Bloomin' blostonians, can't they even clean up the messes they leave? Sure would make Dunn's walks through the city less existentially morbid.

Signs of Dunkies Donuts Corp’s attempted industrialization of the city are everywhere in Bloston. There’s a Dunkies Donuts on every corner, old billboards on the tallest few buildings, and the loss of all the old indie coffee shops that long-time residents still feel. There are conflicting stories on how the corporation went defunct. Some say they dug too deeply and too greedily in the donut mines, awakening some sleeping presence beneath the city that cursed them with inevitable doom. Others tell stories about an interdimensional collider Dunkies built to produce infinite coffee beans from alternate realities that exploded, and is the source of all the quantum entanglements gripping the city’s heart like vines. Dunn’s teammate Castillo insists he destroyed Dunkies Corp with his hyperbolic time chamber, but honestly Dunn thinks he’s just trying to take credit so the rest of the team will stop giving him grief for the spacetime distortions making it impossible to get around The Garden.

Whatever caused their collapse, pretty much everyone in Bloston is happy to see them gone; and as difficult as it makes it to navigate the city, everyone's agreed that the overgrowth of old Dunkies Donuts shops is the best thing to happen to the city since the Big Bloom.

As Dunn turns down yet another twisting road, carefully stepping over a tree root breaking up through the sidewalk, another old Dunkies robot suggests trying the new pumpkin spice flavored Coolatta. Dunn wishes their face was capable of expressing disgust.

There’s a lot of pros and cons to being a coffee machine robot. First of all, it’s easy to help their teammates out with a coffee break between innings. The fact that she runs on Dunkies also means she never really gets tired. And their robot strength makes them a bloomin’ great batter. On the other hand, baserunning during home games is a bloomin’ nightmare, their square robot body just can’t navigate through the forest growing on the diamond. Running on dunkies is great for overall caffeination, but not so much for the flavor. And worst of all, whenever she wants to go out into the city, she’s gotta make sure she’s wearing her Flowers uniform so she isn’t mistaken for just another mindless Dunkies bot. Dealing with all the fans can be a little overbearing, especially when she just wants to get to the bloomin’ gardens. Or, what’s left of them at least.

When Dunkies Donuts first made Bloston their target for corporate takeover, the first thing they did was pave over the public gardens. The oldest botanical garden in Amlerica, established in 1837, unestablished in XX58. Grand old birches and elms, beautiful black-eyed susans and lavender bushes torn up and thrown away. The swan boats were repurposed into donut bumper cars in an attempt to turn part of the complex into a coffee based amusement park to try and win back the public. Not even the kentucky coffee trees survived. What kind of bloomin’ disgrace of a coffee company tears up kentucky coffee trees?

Dunn turned another corner. So many twists and turns in this bloomin’ city, and if that wasn’t hard enough, seems like the nature cultists went a little overboard again. Some out of control spells now saw the road blocked off by a wall of new growth. Bearberry bushes and black cherry trees hemmed in far too close together made the road near impassable. No problem for a plant person like Caligula, and maybe a human some other humanoids could squeeze their way through, but for someone like Dunn? Her engine began to heat up with frustration. Fans kick in, whirling to cool it down. Fine, it’s bloomin’ fine, they’ll take a detour. They’ve lived in Bloston long enough and made their way out here often enough to know another way.

The collapse of Dunkies Donuts, now known as the Big Dunk, was swiftly followed up by the Big Bloom. The fenmaids, the fishpeople now living in the sunken parts of the city manifested from the Big Dunk, and just regular folks practicing the good ol’ Mlassachusetts tradition of witchcraft banded together to take back the city. In retrospect, some of them might have been a little overzealous, but most blostonians have come to love their overgrown city. Dunn is definitely thankful for the Big Bloom, but appreciative of recent attempts to at least make the roads more accessible again. At least, as much as they ever were.

She can smell the scent of stale coffee before she sees the old building. It really never goes away, no matter how much time passes. Maybe eventually their work here can fix that. Maybe that’s why they keep returning.

The scent gets stronger and stronger until they see it. An anachronistic clashing of senses. The building reeks of coffee and congealed donut glaze, but is completely overgrown and in bloom. Rose bushes have overtaken the walls, blooming with blood red flowers and sharp thorns the size of human hands. A kaleidoscopic forest of varying bark and leaf colors bursts up through the now collapsed roof. The accompanying amusement park complex is overflowing with color, gentle lavender purple and bright sunflower yellows complementing each other in the midday sun, overtaking the faded paint on coffee-themed carnival rides and donut stands. 

This is no regular overgrowth, though. Some of the Bloom cultists leave this place alone, not quite sure what to make of its shifting topography. Much of the city shifts and changes due to the aftermath of the Big Dunk, but what happens at the old DDHQ feels different. Looking at it from one moment to the next, there is a feeling of movement, impossibly fast for plants. Yet if you were to try and pin-point what had changed, you would find yourself at a total loss. It feels familiar in the sense of thinking you recognize a stranger. But once you get closer, the embarrassment of your mistake sinks in. 

As Dunn approaches the doors, the vines part for them. They know her. 

Others who have found the bravery to enter claim the place is haunted, but not by any humanoid ghosts. More like the plants growing there aren’t truly alive. The memory of plants that were torn up from their homes years ago. Usually once the realization sinks in, those few explorers leave and don’t return. When Dunn first came to this place, however, she felt relief once she realized what was going on. The plants were coming back home, just like her. Now, they share this home. And Dunn loves the feeling of having friends waiting for them at home.

There’s an area set aside in what used to be the foreman’s office. A watering can, a can of salt spray, and a little shelf with some books on it. Dunn picks up the watering can and the sci-fi novel they’ve been reading, and heads back out onto the main floor. Book in one hand, watering can in the other, they start walking the perimeter of the building, saying hello to old friends and giving them a little to drink. It’s a ritual that’s soothing, coming out every siesta to say hello, make sure the ghosts are doing alright, and take a little time for themself to dig into a good book. 

Dunn can’t go anywhere in Bloston without staring into the metaphorical mirror. Reminders of what they could have been, what they were built to be. But coming back home, to the place she was made, and finding new purpose in helping these ghosts take it back? That makes the walks through the city worth it, every time.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] I Was Made Here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26706493) by [elaineofshalott (LadyofMisrule)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofMisrule/pseuds/elaineofshalott)




End file.
